


Thistle on the Winds

by Latchkei



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 12:24:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8624404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Latchkei/pseuds/Latchkei
Summary: “It is the Vessels duty to take in all the lives of the World Egg and when filled she will Journey to The Crater to sooth Astraios, the Starchild on who’s egg we all live. With the sacred starheart only we Ent possess, the Vessel will pour out the experiences she has lived and show the Starchild all he suffers to save.” 
Thistle had put off this Journey for too long, she knows. As the Vessel she had reached her limit well over a year ago but there had been too much left to do.





	

She staggered, coming back to herself once more. Leaning against a sandstone boulder, the days heat still trapped within. She used the rough warmth pressed to her cheek to ground herself. Thistle had put off this Journey for too long, she knows. As the Vessel she had reached her limit well over a year ago but there had been too much left to do.  
There was still too much left to do.   
She had no choice, she had been filled to the brim and now all she was is spilling out over the edges. Thistle looked up the path she had been following, sandy underfoot and winding further upwards, she was close to her destination. The sky above her was hidden behind clouds but this close to The Crater it was never dark, the world around Thistle lit brightly by roaring starfire.   
She shuffled forward, her feet navigating loose stones easily, long since accustomed to traveling great distances bare.   
“So it is written that the starfire will purify anything the Vessel may try to carry between the Cracks.” The priestess’s voice had been filled with such reverence for something that had quickly become an irritation for Thistle. “Each Journey through the Starfire is a new birth for the Vessel and she must be born anew.” 

 

It had been five years since Thistle had first touched starfire. On the Night of Children she had passed her hand harmlessly through the blue fire within the Temple of Astraios and was pronounced the new Vessel. It hadn’t hurt, she had only felt soothing warmth against her palm.  
This before her was no temple flame.  
Roaring from the rent earth was a blue green inferno forming a solid wall that worked its way across the entire planet. The strong winds snatched at her lavender hair and ceremonial robe. Behind her was the majority of Unicorn Forest, eager for the festival to begin, awaiting the moment Thistle would step through the roaring storm and begin her Journey.  
Beside her the High Priestess was giving her prepared speech, Thistle couldn’t hear it over the pounding inside her ears. Sister Ivy took up her clammy hand, giving a comforting squeeze and drawing Thistle’s attention to her lined green face. “It is time child. Remember Vessel Briar’s instruction, two cracks west and one crack south, Delta City should be your first destination.”  
She nodded, throat too dry to speak and took a shaky step forward. The gathered crowd cheered, she couldn’t turn back, this was what she was born to do.  
Oh how she wanted to turn back.  
A few more steps and she reached the painted stone that marked where the crack was thin enough to step over. Thistle reached a trembling hand out and touched the starfire. This close the strong winds made her eyes water, Thistle could smell something burning. Her hand was bathed in warm green light - her robe was on fire. The blue flames didn’t hurt but it was still shocking to see the embroidered material char and flutter away from her skin.  
Taking a final breath of the forest rich air of her homeland Thistle stepped blindly through.  
The starfire drowned out her senses, all but her starheart. In the roaring green shroud she felt something huge move, a great mind in pain but welcoming. Majestic and burning he washed through her body, this was the child of the sun who patiently held himself still at the centre of their world, lest a careless movement crack the world egg further and destroy them all. This was the Starchild, Astraios.  
This was the first time Thistle fell in love. 

 

The bright lights of The Crater disorientate her as she struggled to return to her present. Shaking silver hair from her sweaty brow, Thistle reminds herself that she is not beginning her Journey but reaching its end.   
She crested the top of The Crater and stopped to admire the view. Far below her and stretching off into the distance was the mossy treetops of her homeland, Unicorn Forest, bracketed on either side by a wall of starfire.   
On the other side of the crater lip the ground was shattered into a short jagged slope that ended in a pillar of screaming green starfire so wide it might take her more than a day to walk its circumference.   
The sandy path Thistle had been following morphed into hand carved sandstone steps and continued down the inner slope. The steps reached a flat platform that had been painted by the priesthood. It was bare save for a simple stone bench that faced the sheared earth and starfire.  
Thistle felt a wave of relief at the sight of it, her old bones aching from the steep climb. Carefully she begun to descend the stairs.  
“Our world is an egg laid by the heavenly bird, Solaris, whom flies around the world every day to keep it warm with her light. Unknown by all who lived on the shell of his egg Astraios grew strong, nourished by devoted Solaris. One day the ground begun to shake, this was the Starchild tapping at his shell. Cracks tore apart the earth and starfire sprung forth, this was Astraios hatching.” 

 

Xao continued to pull up graphs on the holoscreen. “It’s thanks to your predecessor, Vessel Briar’s mediation with the Dwarven folk of Stonehammer that we’ve been able to accelerate the production of ARK.”  
A picture flicked to the forefront of the display, showing huge metal structures that Thistle struggled to understand. “These are the boats that sail in the stars?”   
“Er, yes. We of Delta City have dedicated generations to the warning of the Vessels. Our own investigations have revealed the planet not to be salvageable and these ships can carry the inhabitants of our world to a new home planet.”  
Understanding hit Thistle in a flash. “How long until the ships are ready?” The control and painful confinement she felt whenever her starheart connected with the Astraios jumped to the forefront of her mind.   
“Not in our lifetime, unfortunately.” Xao continued. “With the help of the dwarfs our new projections predict that they will be completed, tested and ready within the next cycle of the Vessel.”  
Thistle clasped the man’s hands in her own, her eyes brimming with hopeful tears and trying to share her joy through her starheart. “Your people have worked so diligently to save us all. This is more than I could have ever hoped for, Doctor Xao, please tell me what you need me to do.”  
“Ah well.” The man tugged at her hands but she did not release him. “Vessel Thistle, we know you have only just begun your Journey and we wish you to continue with that. All Delta City asks is that you inform the locals of ARK so that when the time comes all will be ready.”   
“I can do that.”  
He looked out of the tall glass window that formed one of the walls of the room. “We understand that to most of the inhabitants of our world our advanced technology can be quite frightening.”  
Thistle followed his gaze to the forest of glass and metal spires that formed Delta city, strange vehicles darting through the air like flocks of birds. To a young Ent who spent her life in the peaceful green of Unicorn Forest it had indeed been frightening at first. 

 

Swaying dizzily at the rush of memories that overflowed, Thistle wished desperately for a hand rail. It would not do to come all this way only to take a tumble down the stairs.  
Finally, she made it to the flat sandstone platform at the edge of the rough cut stairs. This was the breach in the world egg where Astraios had first begun to hatch, the holy site where so many Vessels before her had ended their journey.   
Thistle had thought of this moment many times over the course of her Journey, sometimes with longing and sometimes with fear. Of that last step she was born to take, a step that was fated to carry her over the edge of the world.  
She hadn’t feared crossing the starfire since her younger years, the thought of falling after taking the blind step over the crack long banished. Now she intended to fall through and the fear was back, chilling the sweat on her skin.  
Yet despite the pounding in her chest she was ready to meet the ancient child that she had felt and loved every time she passed over a crack. A god who refused his birth to save them. Thistle was eager to show him the worth of his sacrifice. The world was a place filled with many wonders that she had been chosen to witness, but of all the things Thistle wanted to show him it was love she had found the most beautiful.  
“The first Vessel, Frond, came upon The Crater where Astraios was peering out at his mother. Fronds starheart was strong and he begged the heavenly creature to stay his birth. The Vessel shared with Astraios all of those precious things that lived on the outside of his shell, he explained that should the Starchild hatch, they would be destroyed. Astraios was moved by Fronds love.”

 

“How is she?” asked Freybjorn, his bright blue eyes smiling at Thistle from under the pile of furs they had shared the previous night.   
The Vessel continued to stroke Asta’s shaggy fur, feeling the elgs contentment through her starheart. The newly born calf suckled with a healthy appetite and the herd remained close to protect both mother and child. “She is well, only a little sore but happy.”   
“And the little one?” He yawned, still tired after the late night they had spent assisting the elg with her birth.  
“Hungry, as though a Herdlord such as yourself could not tell.” Thistle laughed and moved back towards the blond man laying amidst a pile of furs.   
“Are you sure you are not Gyda? Who but a goddess could hear the hearts of beasts and safely walk nude in the snow?” He trailed his eyes over her naked form, gaze heated with something other than religious fervour.   
Thistle had risen early to check on the calf, and not bothered to don the thick furs Freybjorn had given her some months ago. The elg were larger more muscular versions of the deer that lived in Unicorn Forest and very much reminded the Ent of her homeland. It had been a hard birth on Asta, Thistle had only intended to be gone for a few moments to check on the new mother.  
The crisp white snow was new to her, crunching and sinking beneath her bare feet, cold but not dangerously so. It seemed Astraios’ protection that shielded her from the heat of the starfire also safeguarded against extreme cold.   
The Herdlord had told her that this high in The Long Ranges, snow fell all year round and could be a danger to those not born to its chill.  
“I’m no goddess you fool.” As usual, she was charmed by his words.  
“Truly? Perhaps I should test to be sure?” He was up and catching her in his strong arms faster than she could react. Like his herd, Freybjorn was fairer of colour and more muscular than the men of Unicorn Forest. He carried the laughing Ent back to the warm furs as the herd looked on.  
This was the second time Thistle fell in love.

 

Thistle groaned as she eased herself down onto the stone bench, the climb had been more difficult than she had been expecting. Still, she smiled at the memory of Freybjorn and the passionate season they had spent together in The Long Ranges.   
In her years of training at the temple she had read the accounts of her predecessors. They described the pain of leaving loved ones behind when the time came to pass through a new crack. Many of those records warned against such attachments but over her years Thistle had found that each relationship she formed strengthened, rather than weakened, her devotion to the Journey.   
She held within herself the passion, generosity and selflessness of all those she had loved and would bring them to Astraios. Each of them sparkled in her heart like a precious gem to be treasured by the Starchild for eternity, long after the planet was gone.  
“It is the Vessels duty to take in all the lives of the World Egg and when filled she will Journey to The Crater to sooth Astraios, the Starchild on who’s egg we all live. With the sacred starheart only we Ent possess, the Vessel will pour out the experiences she has lived and show the Starchild all he suffers to save.” 

 

Tall wet grass brushed at her legs as she wandered further into the dark moors. Velvety black hill tops and dancing moonlit fog stretch out before her. She saw movement within the mist. A large animal is prowling silently, observing her. Thistle reaches out with her Starheart, projecting ‘safe, not prey, sister’. The response she receives is surprisingly complex for an animal. Shock, confusion, curiosity and some other squiggly feeling that the Ent had never felt before.  
An imposing dog stepped from the fog. No, less a dog and more like the snowy hunters from Freybjorn’s land, a wolf. Only larger still and dark of fur, bright yellow eyes watched her with an intelligence that belonged to no animal.   
Again came the squiggly feeling from the wolf, matched with sharp curiosity. It was asking her a question. “Greetings, I am the Vessel.” Thistle begins. “My Starheart cannot hear words, sister, but it is I that you are feeling.”   
The wolf scents the air, and continues its approach; but it moves oddly, it’s body shivering and rippling. Then it is not a wolf, but a tall woman clad only in what appears to be a cloak shaped like a beast. “The Vessel? Are you truly? You do not smell of calamity, only of the wall and the child you carry.”   
The Ent was shocked at the words. “Excuse me? Child? Are you saying that I’m pregnant?”  
The wolf woman grinned at Thistle’s raised tone. “Did you not know Vessel? Not only can I smell it on you but your stomach is also beginning to show.”   
She looked down at her bare belly and it was indeed protruding slightly. She couldn’t recall her last moonflow, not since she was in The Long Ranges with Freybjorn some months ago. She really hadn’t been paying much attention to it, she had been too focused on her heartache after leaving the Herdlord.  
“I- I need to think about this.” She sank to her knees in the wet grass, deaf to the wolf woman’s questions. Had this happened before? There had certainly been female Vessels before her and it was unlikely that none had encountered a similar situation but Thistle had not read anything of this nature in the archives of the temple.  
What if it was not safe to pass through the starfire while carrying a child? It could explain why nothing had been written down if none of the Vessels had carried to birth.  
Then came the memory of her robes charring against her skin and the realisation any babe in her arms would suffer the same fate. As long as Thistle lived there could not be another Vessel. Even if she carried the baby to term as the Vessel, she would have to leave the child wherever it was born. Trapped by the starfire while she was forced to move on.   
She had to choose where the child would be best cared for and then abandon it.  
Thistle wept.

She gasped, rising once more from the overflowing memory. Tears prickling at her eyes from the lingering sadness and blurred the green fire before her. Learning that she was pregnant with Freybjorn’s child was perhaps the only time she had truly struggled with her dedication to Astraios.   
Thistle had returned to The Long Ranges but Herdlords were nomadic and she had been unable to find her lover. She had considered returning to Unicorn Forest but she did not know if her half human child would have a starheart, something that her people would consider a hideous birth defect.  
In the end Thistle had decided on Delta City, she knew that they would look after the child for her. Leaving Hazel in the care of Dr Xao was the hardest thing the Ent ever had to do.  
It had been worth it, she had grown into a vibrant and intelligent woman.

 

“Hazel, Vessel Thistle is here to see you.” Xao called into the loud workroom where a woman wearing a faceplate worked over spitting sparks and acrid smoke. At the words she put aside her tools and flipped up the mask with a gloved hand.   
She had her father’s smile.  
“Thistle, It’s good to see you!” She was tall and fit like Freybjorn, with his sparkling blue eyes but darker of skin with lavender hair like her Ent mother. She had no starheart.  
“It’s wonderful to see you are doing so well Hazel. What are you working on?” They embraced, and it eased the tension Thistle always felt before meeting up with her daughter. There was always the fear that Hazel would reject her after she had abandoned the half Ent as a babe.   
There was no hesitation as Hazel kissed her mother’s cheek, it was only Thistles own guilt that created distance between them. Her daughter loved her.

 

Thistle rose from the stone bench, the memory of her daughter’s love held in her heart and stepped forward.   
She was ready.  
Everyone would be safe.   
Thistle took her final step and plummeted down into the green inferno. Beneath her a great eye opened.  
WELCOME.


End file.
